Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, has been reported to be in talks to acquire Perplexity AI. Meta is also known to be planning a large investment in the artificial intelligence (AI) startup ScaleAI.
U.S. economic media CNBC reported on the 20th (local time) citing sources that Meta explored the acquisition of Perplexity, but it did not go through, and the negotiations ended by mutual agreement. Perplexity is known as a startup that provides an AI-based search engine to compete against Google, the world's largest search engine company.
The reason for the stalled negotiations was not disclosed. Perplexity raised $500 million in investments last month and was valued at $14 billion.
Earlier this year, Meta also sought to acquire Safe Superintelligence (SSI), co-founded by OpenAI co-founder Ilya Sutskever last May. At that time, SSI was valued at $32 billion.
However, it is reported that Sutskever also rejected Meta's acquisition offer and attempts to recruit him. The reason why Sutskever declined Meta's offer is not known.
Sutskever, who left OpenAI in May last year, established SSI with the goal of building safe and powerful AI systems. He was involved in the conflict with CEO Sam Altman over AI safety and technology development speed in November 2023, which led to Altman's ousting.
Recently, Meta decided to invest $14.3 billion in the startup ScaleAI and recruited its founder and CEO, Alexander Wang, who is 28 years old.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently criticized Meta for attempting to recruit its engineers by offering up to $100 million in compensation packages, calling it "insane." This suggests that Meta is aggressively pursuing acquisitions of excellent AI startups or talent, indicating its commitment to enhancing its AI capabilities.
Meta unveiled its large language model (LLM) Llama 4 in April. However, its release was later than expected, and its performance has been rated below expectations.
In addition, with one of its main competitors, OpenAI, getting ahead in both AI models and consumer apps, Meta is reportedly feeling anxious and has taken extreme measures to secure top-tier AI talent, according to CNBC.